Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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The Costs Of Running A Vacation Rental (With Real Numbers)

We’ve gotten hundreds of questions about the financial side of running an Airbnb or other short term vacation rental. Specifically: “can you detail the expenses and fees that take a bite out of the profit? Are there hidden costs? How exactly do rental taxes work? Insurance?! ACK!“ Whether the person asking us was considering doing one themselves, or just plain curious (talking about money = interested face emoji), we’re laying it all out in the hope that it demystifies it a little bit, and is helpful to anyone who might be on the fence about whether or not this is a viable side hustle. We actually really enjoyed learning the ins & outs of this

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#154: How To Pare Down When Everything Is Precious

Getting rid of stuff is hard, especially when it comes to kids and their creations. So this week we’re sharing the simple trick we use to keep everything from arts and crafts to forts and cardboard box villages from taking over our house, without putting a damper on creativity. Spoiler alert: this trick works for adults and our favorite things too! Plus, armed with an expert’s advice and a new guideline for how much indoor greenery a home should have for optimal air quality, Sherry doubles down on our home’s plant collection. Also, why things got weird when we switched sides of the bed – and the embarrassing dangers of moving furniture. What’s New If

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How To Hang Peel & Stick Wallpaper (On Video!)

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the wallpaper bandwagon, let this post be the soothing voice that gently strokes your hair and says “don’t worry my pet, wallpaper doesn’t have to be hard, permanent, or expensive. Also your hair looks good today, and I should probably stop touching it because I don’t know you like that.” Adding wallpaper to the middle bedroom at our beach house took us just a few hours and cost us less than $100. It’s a whole lotta bang for not much buck (or extra high skill level). Plus it’s 100% removable so if we ever tire of it or want to swap it for something else, it’s not a

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#153: Easy Ways To Make Your Day Less Annoying

You guys submitted your favorite life hacks over the last few weeks, so today we’ve got an episode bursting at the seams with all of those cheap & simple tricks for making your home run smoother and your day a little less frustrating. We’ve got everything from clever cleaning tips and unconventional storage ideas to both high and low tech ways to keep you more organized. We’re also sharing why we’re giving a BIG EYEROLL to the latest part of our master bathroom renovation and a new money saving tool that we got for our kids. What’s New Life threw us some curveballs this week so we didn’t get very deep into the “unglamorous middle”

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How We Installed Easy Board & Batten At The Beach

Did you catch the sneak peeks of the board & batten that we installed in the middle bedroom at our beach house on Insta Stories? The picture below was also in last week’s podcast shownotes, where we discussed the wallpaper – and we got TONS of requests for a tutorial so here we go. I am not kidding when I say this was an easy project. Completely beginner-friendly – and it makes such a big impact in the room (especially since we added wallpaper above it – we’ll break down that process in a future post). This is actually our third house where we’ve installed some sort of DIY board and batten. We did a

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#152: The Haunted Room At Our Beach House

In honor of Halloween, we’re sharing a spooky occurrence at our beach house that we legitimately couldn’t explain for a few months (even I, the perennial skeptic, was like… “how did that just happen?!”). We’re also chatting with author Miranda Anderson about how her entire family took on a yearlong shopping ban, and how that choice led to more gratitude, patience, and a sense of adventure for the entire family. Plus, an update on how things are getting real (and real messy!) in our master bathroom reno – and a tool we’re using to help keep our sanity throughout the process. What’s New Here’s a peek at the current state of our master bathroom after

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Creating A DIY Vine Trellis

Before it gets too cold to do any more outdoor updates around here, we snuck in a fun little project that I’ve been dying to try for, oh 10 years now. Actually the first time I was like “yeah – I want that” was upon seeing one of those cool diamond trellis things waaaay back in 2009 on the outside of this house that we crashed (yes, that’s 10 years ago! Even though I swear 1999 sounds like 10 years ago in my head). I wish we had captured a picture of it for that post, but I think there was blotchy sunlight on it so it didn’t make the final cut. But that family

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#151: When Is It Worth It To Splurge?

Today we’re sharing how two recent treat yourself moments in our house turned sideways on us and how it shed some light on when to splurge and when to make like Elsa and let it go. One even involves a feature in our bathroom reno that we’ve dreamed about for years, but suddenly can’t seem to justify in actual practice (although it sounds great in theory!). Also after nearly 11,000 people took our “Side Of The Bed” survey, we have some surprising insights about why people sleep where they do. Plus there’s been another Color of the Year development and we find the silver lining to a recent personal event that shook us up. What’s

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How Much Did The Duplex Kitchens Cost?

As our bathroom reno continues (current status: more demo happened, our vanity, tub, & toilet arrived, and we have our plumber & electrician scheduled to rough things in and then we can prep & tile) we thought it would be fun to share a duplex kitchen budget breakdown. *Also, for anyone who has inquired about renting the duplex this fall, there’s an announcement about that later in the post* Obviously, there are LOTS of factors that affect how expensive a kitchen renovation will be, so let this post just be a reference point for you – not a prescription for how much a kitchen reno should cost. The average kitchen reno in 2019 was $24,047

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#150: Changing Our Minds About Our House (Again)

Our home’s exterior makeover didn’t stop with painting it white last year, so today we’re catching you up on some projects we’ve completed and what’s still to come (and it involves something we’ve changed our minds about twice). We’re also reflecting on a few experiments & interviews over the past 149 episodes that truly changed the way we live in our house – and we’re issuing a challenge to help us all find some new ways to improve our household routines and daily lives. Plus, we look into why someone might buy a house they’ve never seen, located in a town they’ve never been to (!!!). The idea may be less crazy than it sounds…

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Our Bathroom Reno: The Floor Plan & Tile Picks!

Ok, now we’re cooking with gas! Maybe I shouldn’t use that expression for a bathroom reno… ANYWAY… we’ve made lots of progress since partially demo-ing the room last week (more on that here), and wanted to share our final floorpan with you (IT’S SUCH A GIANT IMPROVEMENT!) and our final tile picks (along with a few other things we debated, why we chose what we chose, etc). So here’s the old bathroom layout. Yes we lived with it like this for over six years. Yes, it was A LOT of doors (the one leading from the hall to our bedroom is right behind where the tub is below – so there were five in a

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#149: What’s Next For Our Master Bathroom Reno

We’re sharing how our bathroom reno went from zero to fifty percent (that’ll make more sense when you hear what we did) and how we gained a ton of insight about the right layout and the right size for the vanity, shower, tub, etc. Also… the houseplant struggle is real, so we asked plant expert Carmeon Hamilton everything we’ve ever wanted to know about how to keep inside greenery alive (and happy!). She shared her favorite easy plants for beginners and even laid out when to water, re-pot, and fertilize your indoor greenery (we were like: wait, we should be fertilizing?!?). Plus, we’re shouting out a super handy multipurpose tool that we loved so much

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